Ekphrasis
Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 2:21 pm
EKPHRASIS
On the Bush Poets’ website, Marty posted a poem based on a photo of a horse and Maureen often displays pictures suggesting these as inspiration for poems.
I discovered to my amazement and interest that there is a word for this referencing. The word is...ekphrasis.
The definition of ekphrasis is a bit clumsy; “ a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience through its illuminating liveliness...pheww !! much easier to just learn one word; ekphrasis. .
We should note that it doesn’t mean mere illustrating. Pictures in a story or poetry book are not necessarily ekphrasis..
It really means a work of art that stands on its own but still relates to another work of art.
Some examples might make it clear. If you have managed to stay awake so far.
The Russian composer Mussorgsky wrote a famous work called Pictures at an Exhibition, in which the orchestra plays a series of short pieces designed to give the essence of various works of art by the painter Viktor Hartmann. Also in music ( oh dear ! pop music ) we have Nat King Cole singing, Mona Lisa. A reference to Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic portrait of Lisa Gherandini.
In poetry, John Keats wrote Ode to a Grecian Urn, based on a wonderfully decorated classical artefact known as the Sosibios Vase and Robert Browning wrote a poem, My Last Duchess, after a portrait of Lucrezia di Medici by Bronzino.
In Australian art there are a couple that I know of. Sir Arthur Streeton did a marvellous landscape painting of the Yarra Valley at Eaglemont and called it : Still glides the stream and shall forever glide”, this is a quote from a sonnet named “ Conclusion “ by Wordsworth. And Streeton also painted the Hawkesbury River landscape and called that “ The purple noon’s transparent might “ . a line from a poem by Shelley that has the ponderous title of “ Stanzas written in dejection near Naples “.Sir Sidney Nolan had a go at poetry themes by Arthur Rimbaud and the infamous Ern Malley, I think they are more illustration.
It is perhaps a pity that Australian painters don’t seem to have been moved by Dorothea MacKellar’s wide brown land or Paterson’s Castlereagh River where the reed beds sweep and sway. Or even by Lawson’s transformed rouseabout.
The Art Gallery of NSW once held an exhibition where particular poets were asked to write a poem about a chosen Australian painting. The result was fantastic and I have seen the book that they made from it. It is superb.
My dream is that one day I can get going a poetry event where bush poems are matched to bush paintings. I am still trying to figure out how to do it.
On the Bush Poets’ website, Marty posted a poem based on a photo of a horse and Maureen often displays pictures suggesting these as inspiration for poems.
I discovered to my amazement and interest that there is a word for this referencing. The word is...ekphrasis.
The definition of ekphrasis is a bit clumsy; “ a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience through its illuminating liveliness...pheww !! much easier to just learn one word; ekphrasis. .
We should note that it doesn’t mean mere illustrating. Pictures in a story or poetry book are not necessarily ekphrasis..
It really means a work of art that stands on its own but still relates to another work of art.
Some examples might make it clear. If you have managed to stay awake so far.
The Russian composer Mussorgsky wrote a famous work called Pictures at an Exhibition, in which the orchestra plays a series of short pieces designed to give the essence of various works of art by the painter Viktor Hartmann. Also in music ( oh dear ! pop music ) we have Nat King Cole singing, Mona Lisa. A reference to Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic portrait of Lisa Gherandini.
In poetry, John Keats wrote Ode to a Grecian Urn, based on a wonderfully decorated classical artefact known as the Sosibios Vase and Robert Browning wrote a poem, My Last Duchess, after a portrait of Lucrezia di Medici by Bronzino.
In Australian art there are a couple that I know of. Sir Arthur Streeton did a marvellous landscape painting of the Yarra Valley at Eaglemont and called it : Still glides the stream and shall forever glide”, this is a quote from a sonnet named “ Conclusion “ by Wordsworth. And Streeton also painted the Hawkesbury River landscape and called that “ The purple noon’s transparent might “ . a line from a poem by Shelley that has the ponderous title of “ Stanzas written in dejection near Naples “.Sir Sidney Nolan had a go at poetry themes by Arthur Rimbaud and the infamous Ern Malley, I think they are more illustration.
It is perhaps a pity that Australian painters don’t seem to have been moved by Dorothea MacKellar’s wide brown land or Paterson’s Castlereagh River where the reed beds sweep and sway. Or even by Lawson’s transformed rouseabout.
The Art Gallery of NSW once held an exhibition where particular poets were asked to write a poem about a chosen Australian painting. The result was fantastic and I have seen the book that they made from it. It is superb.
My dream is that one day I can get going a poetry event where bush poems are matched to bush paintings. I am still trying to figure out how to do it.
Stephen made a funny. 
